Under Settings > Scheduled Jobs there is a job called 'Validate Email Address from Mailings'. I'm not clear what this does exactly.

The documentation says:

Updates the reset_date on an email address to indicate that there was a valid delivery to this email address.

I'm not clear what this means and what affect it has on the email address.

Could somebody explain how this works?

Also could you explain what the parameters do:

minDays, maxDays=Consider mailings that have completed between minDays and maxDays

I'm using CiviCRM 4.6.8.

Many thanks for your help.

  • William - what was your conclusion in the end, and if you did set this, what did you actually enter, ie does one replace minDays with an integer? or something else – petednz - fuzion May 12 '16 at 5:32
  • @petednz-fuzion I haven't actually used it myself, I was just trying to understand what it does. – William Mortada May 12 '16 at 8:22

The purpose of this job is to avoid putting a hold on an email address which had a few bounces (e.g. mailbox full) and then got one or more successful deliveries before starting to bounce again. The job reviews all non-test mailing jobs which have completed between $minDays and $maxDays and sets "reset date" to the most recent date that an email was actually delivered to that email address. Bounces prior to the reset date are ignored when determining whether an email address should be placed on hold.

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    Dave, could you suggest reasonable values for $minDays and $maxDays for regular on-going use of this job? 1 and 5? – Joe Murray Nov 4 '15 at 15:57
  • I am not able to find an example of the correct syntax for parameters in docs. wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC/… Some parameters show exactly what to enter but not others. I have run it through the API Explorer successfully but it doesn't really tell me exactly what syntax is being executed. – BruceW Jan 7 '17 at 1:02

The scheduled job examines previously sent emails (in the range of dates if given) for any confirmation that the email was rec'd, typically opens or clicks, and if found the reset_date is updated.

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  • Okay, thanks. How is the reset date used by CiviCRM? What happens if this job isn't run? Does it matter? If it does, what are sensible parameters to use? – William Mortada Oct 13 '15 at 12:24
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    The details seem to be a bit of black magic, but the reset_date is used when processing soft bounces. In CiviCRM, when the number of soft bounces crosses a set threshold, the email is put on_hold. CiviCRM limits the bounces that are counted in this test to those that occurred since the reset_date. (Since bounces that occurred prior to the reset_date are meaningless.) With that said, after having worked with many, many CiviCRM installations, I don't recall any that have enabled this job. Ultimately whether to use it or not is a business decision. – DaveD - BackOffice Thinking Oct 13 '15 at 14:17
  • As for the parameters, it will vary depending on the frequency and recency of your mailings, so you will need to use your best judgment. IMHO. – DaveD - BackOffice Thinking Oct 13 '15 at 14:20
  • Hi Dave. Do you have an example of what you have actually set and how? Ie if I want to set it to between eg 5 and 10 days? – petednz - fuzion May 12 '16 at 21:18

only qualified and verified information is to be included on an actively working database. added entries change over time and info needs to be updated continually if proper verification methods are maintained. entries should be re-verified at a minimum of X amounts of days (so as not to bombard the recipient) and at a maximum of Y days so fresh new data is continually maintained. validation can be a reply or an auto-reply showing evidence of a valid email address.

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    Thanks Fernando, but I'm still not clear what this job actually does. Does it send an email to each contact to check that their email address is valid? How does it record whether the email address is valid or not? – William Mortada Oct 3 '15 at 10:10

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